


Small Things

by Maybethings



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: AUception, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe of Alternate Universe, Childbirth, Drabble, Drabble Sequence, Dystocia, F/M, Fluff, Pregnancy, Premature Birth, Qunmance, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-16
Packaged: 2017-11-03 18:46:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybethings/pseuds/Maybethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU of AU of Grey Warden/Short Taarbas timeline. Sten is conscripted into the Wardens, and he and Natia have a child together, albeit unplanned. (Lore compliance? What lore compliance?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Things

For something so small, she is incredibly strong—and inexplicably soft. The slow, almost electric touch of her fingers on his bare chest makes her intentions clear. So does the kiss she plants on his mouth, and how she gently sets her teeth into his lip as she pulls away, her hand tracing the curve of his jaw.

“Lie with me, Sten,” Natia murmurs as she leans over him, the mattress giving slightly under their weight. Her breath is as sweet and warm as her words. “Don’t think of me as the Warden, or the woman in love with you. Come to me as my _kadan_.”

It has been some time since the tamassrans last called him to such duties. This isn't even close. But his voice cracks as he replies, “I have not coupled with one of your size before.”

“Neither have I." She gently straddles his traitorous arousal. “But we’ll both learn. Will I need armour?"

“Unnecessary,” he growls shortly, pulling her smalls down and breathing in the scent of her need as she unlaces her nightshirt, his trousers. He cups her breasts, kissing both before focusing his attentions lower.

He looms over her, now, and she clings to him, rising to meet his thrusts. She cries in mixed pleasure and pain as he enters her fully, though he tries to be gentle. They both move to a rhythm shared for the first time, slow and careful and considered, and she is warm and welcoming around him. They are one flesh and she is so small and so soft and feels so _right_ , calling his name over and over just before she climaxes and he, too, tips over the edge. They fall asleep in each other's arms, flushed and sweaty and spent, their breath one breath.

* * *

Dawn comes and goes. Natia lies languid in Sten's arms, her scars touching his own. She nudges him, gently, with a chilly foot. “If I had known you were going to do that, I might have asked earlier,” she murmurs with eyes still closed, her voice slow and thick and utterly contented.

“You would not have received a favourable answer,” he mutters into the coppery, tousled veil of her hair. She laughs, and he feels it all the way into his belly.

“Let’s just stay here for a while and not move. I don't want to forget a single moment of this.”

“We are _kadan_.” He nuzzles the hollow of her neck and she sighs appreciatively, pressing closer to him. “No matter what, we will be together always. That was merely one act.”

“Oh? Does that mean there's gonna be a next time?”

He chuckles, rubbing one hand in slow circles along her upper hip. It is different, staying with one’s partner so long after the act, feeling her breath along with your own and her heartbeat against your skin. “I do not know. How strong are dwarven teeth?”

“ _Duster_ ,” she scoffs, jabbing him playfully in the ribs.

* * *

It is small things again that tip him off: the way she's slower to rise in the morning, the paleness of her cheeks. She shrugs it off as a cold or some other malady. For a time.

Finally one night before the watch, she asks him to walk with her. They patrol the outer turrets of the Keep in silence.

“ _Kadan_ ,” she finally tells him, without meeting his eye, “I haven’t bled for two moons now. I think there’s a baby in here.” 

“A child.” He gazes down at her, and she thinks there’s a flicker of wonder in his violet eyes.

“A child. Yours.” She bites her lip, folding mail-clad hands over her flat stomach. “The Wardens say it’s difficult for us to bear children but...it’s happened, anyway. I don’t want it to grow up like I did, knowing only half of where I came from. Ain't no tamassrans here to teach it how to be Qunari, Sten. Will you stand by me?”

He is ill-equipped to teach anyone's child anything, but ill-equipped is better than not at all. There is no other answer but “Yes,” and her smile outshines any star.

* * *

In Sten’s limited experience there are two things that can happen when a woman becomes with child. They become hard and strong and fierce, or quiet and soft and peaceful.

Natia does neither. The Wardenpractically _blossoms_ instead.

He watches her body change with the passing weeks, filling out as the child grows within her. It seems to suit the dwarf, and she practically glows as she goes about her daily tasks. Seeing her happy and active and keeping herself strong brings him a strange sense of pride.

This contentment is not something even she had come to expect, and she says as much, one night when they are both on a late watch.

“Do you know what a noble hunter is?” she adds, in response to the questioning look he shoots her. He has not, and she explains the concept to him as best as she can. She doesn’t know how he’ll react, but he takes it in his stride.

“It is a way to replenish the dwarves’ numbers,” he muses. “Though not without its flaws.” He notes the way she keeps her hands folded gently before her. “You would have done such a thing, had you not become a Warden?”

“Probably,” she says with a wry wrinkle of her nose. “But I would probably have ended up with some duster’s brat in my belly instead, and nowhere to go.” She smiles the small bashful way she does when she’s about to speak of sentimental things. “I’m glad that it was with you. That it was something I got to choose. And that this child will be born free.”

Sten understands, if fleetingly, the _basra_ predilection for families. It is something wholly your own that you can choose to build, little by little.

* * *

She’s not halfway through her pregnancy yet and already looks like she's ready to deliver. The healer stationed at the Keep, a silver-tongued, sandy-haired mage hailing from the Anderfels, tells Natia to slow down for her own sake. She acquiesces with the deepest of reluctance, though her movements are slower now, and she tires more easily—even in the rogue’s light leathers she has switched to from her usual iron plate.

“You forget too easily that you carry life within you,” Sten grumbles as she sits beside him at night. “A woman, especially in your condition, is not expected to fight.”

She leans against his shoulder, grousing good-naturedly, “Oh, I remember. This one kicks like an ogre.” She presses one of his large, rough hands to the warm rise of her nightshirt. Something below her skin thumps hard against his palm. He starts backwards. She grins.

“This is new,” is all he says in his defense.

“Then we’ll both learn,” Natia replies as she rubs her belly, wincing. "He's got every bit of your strength, _kadan_."

"How do you know it is male?"

"A woman's instinct," she says loftily, laughing when he regards her with profound skepticism.

* * *

It is a testament to the depth of their bond and how long he has been separated from the Qun that Sten continues their physical intimacy. The coupling was but once, but they still share the same spaces, skin to skin and scars to scars.  
  
Under the cover of night, he presses his forehead to her stomach, breathing in the scent of her skin as she runs her fingers gently through his braids, murmuring endearments he will stand from no other in this world. In this moment, he knows without doubt they are worth protection: his _kadan_ and her child.

* * *

Her pains come two months too early, with the waning Harvestmere moon. All he can do is hold her close as she sweats and trembles with every contraction, fighting to bring her child— _their_ child into the world. It goes on far too long, surely, and he can _see_ the muscles tighten across her round belly. Maybe, just maybe, she is too small for this.

She looks up at him, pupils blown, cheeks pale. The twist of cloth she is biting down on falls from her mouth. “Pleasedon’tleave,” she gasps.

He nods, not trusting himself to speak, taking her hand firmly in his. They are alone; there are no asari to attend this birth, none of her sisters to support her, no tamassran to catch the child as it cries and whisper its lineage into its ears. But she will have him.

Another contraction grips her. Natia arches her back and screams like no darkspawn or dragon has ever made her do. Sten curls protectively around his _kadan_ , telling her just how strong she is and how far they’ve come and not to die in this foolishness, and he doesn’t realise that he's speaking in Qunlat but she is _past caring_. Her breath is harsh and desperate as she draws on all her remaining strength, throwing herself against the pain again and again as the air hangs heavy with blood and sweat and salt. With her next push her voice becomes a roar, loud and long and victorious as one of Sten’s knuckles sharply goes _pop_ under Natia’s fingers and two people suddenly, miraculously, become three.

But there is no answering cry from the babe that moves weakly between her legs. Though its long limbs paddle the air, its chest does not rise nor fall with breath.

“Let me—” Natia gasps, swallowing. “Let me hold him, Sten.” He still doesn’t question how she knows, and lifts the child to her outstretched arms. He's massive and bloody, still connected to her by a slowly pulsing umbilical cord. Pale fuzz crowns his head, and his brow is unbroken by horns. He lies still in her embrace. Too large. Too small. Too soon. For this, then, she has risked her life.

“My little stone,” she croons, her voice faint and giddy. Sten wraps his arms around them both, his heart beating too hard, too fast, as if trying to sustain all three of them. “Our beautiful son.” She tenderly kisses the boy's stubby nose. He opens his mouth with a thin, wet gargle, then wails loudly as his lungs finally inflate with the air of the living.

The moment is as huge as the sky. Sten bends to whisper his name, the one not even Natia knows, into the boy’s delicate, pointed ear, followed by that of his _kadan_. Her eyes gleam up at him with pride and relief and boundless love. Time and again, he has seen that even the smallest things can wax strong.


End file.
